Growing Pains
by LilacsBloom
Summary: She and Luke were all that was left, with everyday a struggle to survive and reach a place of safety in the north that was too many miles away to count. So often Clementine had seen it happen, death claiming the lives of friends or complete and utter strangers, the lives she failed to save…and now, it was her turn.
1. Part 1

A/N: I've always had a soft spot for when it comes to writing about family, especially those not related by blood. The Walking Dead really had an impact on me for that, on how a man could take care of a young girl in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and build such a father/daughter bond between them in those few months they had together.

Ever since Season 2 has kicked off, I have worried about the fate of poor Clementine and if the end to her journey will be a happy one, or one to end in tragedy. It's from that bleak uncertainty that has driven me to write this, but also that I've taken a strong liking to Luke as well and hope he will wind up stepping in for Lee and being that family Clem needs.

Please note that at the current time of writing this, the last three remaining episodes of TWDG Season 2 are not all out yet, and I previously wrote this first part before Episode 2's release. Although I will bring some events into context from the game, this three-part story is an A/U [alternate universe] and will branch off in a different direction.

And on a final note: _This is going to hurt._

* * *

_**The Walking Dead**_

_Growing Pains..._

[Part 1/3]

* * *

The droplets fell on the fresh snow, one after the other, the deep red of their color standing out against the pure white of those woods. All she can do is stare at them, watching as more and more of the dark liquid drips onto the ground, her insides feeling numb; her breaths shallow.

Clementine had lost.

She had lost.

Death was a usual occurrence in her life. Before she was seven, her grandparents on both her mom and dad's sides were gone. Every one of their funerals she had been to, still remembering clearly the sad faces, the flowers and the coffin…four times.

Then there was her pet hamster, Bubbles, who she'd buried in the garden, after he'd sneaked out of his cage in the day and got electrocuted when he chewed through a live wire. Her mom offered to buy her a new one, but it had only made Clementine sadder. She couldn't replace her grandparents, and to her, Bubbles was no different back then.

Not long after her hamster went, had the world fallen apart. Her babysitter got sick from a _drunk_ to have bitten her arm, and both Clementine's parents were miles away from home. The only people she could trust were a bunch of complete strangers, who soon became her new family over those months surviving. Yet Clementine couldn't let go, kept wanting to leave their shelter in the Motor Inn to get to Savannah and find her mom and dad.

When they finally did get out with little choice in the matter, their numbers declined; friends lost or abandoned so quickly, so sudden, until eventually even Lee, the man who had found and rescued her, was dead too. Then in time so was Omid, Christa, their baby boy…

For Clementine, death followed her everywhere; killing those she cared about, and the people who deserved it, or perhaps didn't. Even when she was to gain some security in a new group after so long; fought the battle to gain the trust of all of them, they too, were lost. One by one, each picked off through the struggles of this world that dwindled them down to a small few…that when the winter finally set in and the heavens open up in an endless snowfall, only Clementine and Luke remained.

All they could do was keep moving, to find safety in the land that kept trying to kill them at every turn. A community up in Wellington where hope still survived, the news of a place spread through word of mouth alone among other survivors. There was no certainty any of it was true, or if it would still be waiting there for them at the end of it all. But those long miles they continued to trek through the heavy snow, scavenging for supplies in the homes and buildings of the deceased, while if often, avoiding the living and dead.

Bad luck, Clementine thought, that it was the latter that were to finally be her downfall.

It wasn't really their fault. The pair of them were always careful, making sure each building they checked was secure and infected-free, and keeping their wits about them everywhere that they went. The problem for them was that they'd focused too much on what they could see around them, not _beneath_ them.

The snow had fallen so much; nearly reaching up to Clementine's knees that it made journeying difficult. The only way she could keep up with Luke was by literally walking in his footsteps with the trail he made through the snow. Even still, she was slowing him down, and the weather wasn't letting off. It'd gotten so cold, the dawn doing nothing to warm her or her cold hands which were naked of gloves. Clementine did have a pair before, those purple knitted ones with the butterflies on them that she really liked…but, she'd forgotten them when a large pack of walkers had found the place that they'd been hiding hours before daylight broke the sky, and in their rush to get out of there, grabbing their coats and gear, her gloves were left behind.

In her pockets Clementine had to keep her hands most the time, blowing on them in a white smokes of vapour after each time she'd needed to climb over a gate or under a wired fence. It was this reason of preserving the heat in her hands that she had fallen over, her balance unsaved as she wasn't able to grab onto a nearby tree when her foot caught on a root hidden in the snow. And with the weight added to her from her backpack, it brought Clementine down even harder on the snow.

"You alright kiddo?" Luke asked, already having gone to help her get back on her feet, giving a friendly reminder to watch herself…when Clementine had seen it, a figure moving out from the trees.

"Luke behind you!"

It was a walker, joined shortly by four more that had all soon caught sight of them both. Before she and Luke had time to do anything, rotten bodies were stirring from under the snow, and many more walkers rose up, groaning hungrily as they slowly crawled or dragged their way towards her and Luke.

Within a few moments, they'd been surrounded by a whole group of them.

Barely half a clip left in the only pistol that they had, Luke had given it to her and pulled out the machete from the sheath on his back, telling her to shoot where it counted most so they could cut a way through. But they couldn't, there'd been too many of them and the walkers had been closing in on the pair, _fast_. All she and Luke could do, was fight.

So they did. Clementine had gunned down seven of them, doing her best to fight her nerves and the cold as so not waste a single bullet. Luke did his part too, slicing the heads off of many of them, pushing or kicking back any that got too close. One walker nearly took a chunk out of his neck, grabbing at him from behind, but Clementine caught it just in time, pulling the trigger and blowing open the back of the walker's head in a burst of red and grey; its frail corpse falling lifeless as Luke shoved it away.

That was the last bullet she had.

The gun _clicked_ empty the next time Clementine went to use it on another walker Luke was quick to take out…the same time that she had felt something grab at her ankle.

A legless walker had crept up on her from out of the snow, its bony fingers latching onto her leg as it'd been prepared to take a bite. Clementine had stomped her foot down on its head, succeeding in stunning it briefly with a crack of its skull, but in doing so she was brought down in the struggle.

With nothing but that empty gun to defend herself with, Clementine had slammed it into the walker's skull, striking it again and again until enough damage was dealt to its brain, and it moved no more.

By then, the last of the walkers were being taken care of, the final one beheaded by Luke's machete as the exhausted man had soon bent over hands on knees, catching his breath at the gory massacre they had brought to that once winter wonderland.

"Clementine, kid are you alright!?" No longer swamped by the undead to have separated them, Luke had come running as soon as he'd seen her standing there idly over the walker she had killed; that blood stained pistol still tightly gripped in her hand. Only when Luke grabbed her shoulders, lightly shaking her, did she finally snap out of her daze. "Clementine!"

In that moment, all she could see were the faces of the people to have died. It was Duck's memory Clementine focused on the most, recalling how he went quiet after he'd gotten bitten during the raid, that he had never said a single word to her or anyone else after that; not even when Katjaa had carried him away into the woods, and the two of them never came back…

Was it fear that had made Duck lose his voice; fear that stopped him from saying anything whenever situations were too much for his simple mind to take? If it was, then Clementine finally understood what it felt like to be in his shoes.

She couldn't bring herself to tell Luke, could only sniffle a sob as she'd bowed her head, allowing for him to figure it out on his own. And Luke did soon enough, quick to take notice of the blood dripping from her left hand, riddled deep in bites.

"I'm sorry…"

It was all Clementine could say.

* * *

They found a river not far from where the walkers had attacked. Most of the water's edge was frozen up in a thin sheet of ice, but the river still flowed as it should and would no doubt be lethal if either one tried to cross it to reach the farmlands on the other side. It was too cold to step in, and yet, Clementine thought about it, that maybe it would be better if she jumped in and let herself freeze to death.

She didn't want to end up like the others, and the alternatives weren't looking bright.

Luke showed no intention of having them take the plunge. Instead he was crouched down by the river, breaking some of the ice away to give him room in the water to clean up that machete completely caked in walker's blood.

Mutely Clementine sat herself down on one of those large rocks while she watched him, not even bothering to brush aside the snow that covered that stone, as her tears continued to silently fall. What did it matter anymore what happened to her, or what she did? She was a lost cause. The constant stinging from her hand reminded her of that, and that this was no magical cure to save her.

What scared her the most however, more than just dying, was that Luke hadn't said much since he'd discovered the bite. She remembered too well how he'd reacted when both he and Pete saved her from the walkers in the forest so many months before; the pain on when she was drop to the ground still vivid as was her frustration at the distrust that group had for her at being unable to believe a child's words that she wasn't bitten, or to side with her completely. And now here they were again, stuck in that same crisis, except now the threat was real, and no dog was to blame.

Either Luke would leave her, or he would put her out of her misery. Even thinking that, Clementine wasn't sure if she should just get up and go…or let it happen.

Right there and then as that thought crossed her mind, Luke at last spoke. But his words weren't of guilt, or apologies for not being there when she was bitten, instead it was an order.

"Getcha coat off."

Clementine blinked the tears out of her eyes, trying to not to sound sad. "What? But it's freezing."

"Doesn't matter, just take it off and roll your sleeve up. We ain't got time to waste on this," there was an urgency in the way that Luke said it, just as how he was when he'd been in a hurry to get them down to that river, although Clementine assumed it was because he was worried about more walkers showing up from the gunfire she'd let off.

But it was only then, when Luke lifted the machete out from those cold waters, the blade washed clean of blood and gleaming in that dawn's light, that Clementine gripped the wrist of her injured hand, finally realizing what it was that he was planning to do.

"No…no! _**No**_!"

"Clementine-"

"You're not cutting it off! You can't!" she cried, already standing up to retreat away from the young man, even though she had nowhere to escape to; the act itself meaningless in her condition. "Please don't cut it off, please don't! D-Don't!"

The anguish on Luke's face was all too real, yet he didn't let go of the blade. "It's the only fighting chance you got left, Clementine. And we gotta try something, coz I'm out of suggestions here and I sure as hell ain't about to have the death of another friend on my conscience."

"But it won't work, it never works!" Clementine shook her head futilely, her vision becoming bleary. "It won't do anything. You can't fix it…"

Cutting off the limb bitten from a walker, it never did any good. Lee had tried it, chopped off nearly his whole arm and he still died in the end. And Pete too, he had just bled to death in the back of that truck in the belief of a rumour that he would survive it by sawing off his own leg. Once you were bitten, that was it. There was no going back.

Luke hadn't let off, already kneeling down in front of her as he rested that machete on the snow-covered pebbles and those gloved hands found hers shoulders again as she refused to look at him. "Clem, Clementine listen to me. Look I know you're scared, and heck you ain't the only one, but you owe it to your folks not give up. They wouldn't want their little girl to go out like this, no parent would. If there's a chance, well, we have to try."

Her mom and dad, for months she dreamed of seeing them again, only to find them in that street turned into one of those things. They were always protective of her growing up, her mom especially, and sometimes they didn't always get along; childish tantrums and short fuses frequent as were the smiles and laughter. Yet they had loved her dearly, and that never changed. Her parents always wanted what was best for her, and so had Lee when he had stepped in to take care of her.

If either one of them were still alive and here with her now, they'd...they would probably be agreeing to do the same thing.

Clementine gripped her arm tighter staring down at her hand, the sight of her skin torn down to the bones making her insides churn. "Y-You don't know that, if it'll do anything. You don't!"

The young man hesitated, that sadness in his eyes revealing clear he was not one to give false hope. It resonated in his voice too, that uncertainty, as did the truth.

"No, I don't. But…"

A sound from far off caused Luke to stop; the two of them in almost perfect sync looking out at the woods they had previous come from. It was the sounds of the dead; long starved moans and mindless wails resounding over and over in their endless search for food. None of the walkers could be seen, although for how much longer couldn't be said for sure, only, that it wouldn't be safe here forever.

The gunfire attracted them. No matter how far away the shots were fired, they always showed up.

Luke gripped at her shoulders firmly, glancing back at her. "Look, we don't have time to talk about this. We have to do this and it has to be right now, you understand that? I ain't no doctor, not like Carlos. Lurker bite or a busted up hand, there's nothing I can do about it. It's gotta go."

Her wound was bad, that was what Luke was getting at. Clementine could tell it wasn't good, _obviously_. The walker had shredded her hand up like the blades of a blender. Without a decent surgeon or a doctor, she'd get gangrene whether or not she was bitten from a walker. Clementine was going to lose her hand either way, that's what Luke meant…

If she had a chance to make it through this, then she had to take it. She just had to be brave, like Lee and she could do it.

Twigs snapped in the distance, the moans of walkers getting closer, with time slipping away with every drop of blood to fall from her chewed up hand.

Clementine gulped, nodding feebly.

"Okay…"

A few minutes, that's all they had to cut...to…to cut off her hand, bandage it and go. Clementine was shaking so much, that the simple task of unzipping her coat proved difficult. The cold and fear; they weren't the best put together, not when hearing the slowly approaching threat of the dead nearby, or facing the daunting aspect of losing her hand..

In his rucksack Luke had gone about tearing up one of his shirts to use as makeshift bandages, not having any left in that near empty first aid kit of theirs to contain only a few band-aids and disinfectant wipes. A great deal of use those would be for her now.

Clementine winced on tugging her injured hand through the sleeve of her coat after sliding off her rucksack, acknowledging soon that hand of hers would be gone and she wouldn't feel it anymore; a single realization that further intensified her panic to the point she was a shivering wreck.

_'Be like Lee, just be like Lee.'_

The bare-bones of a skeleton looking walker stumbled slowly out from among the trees, some 20 or so meters away within the woods. It hadn't noticed them yet, though soon would, very soon…

Luke had spotted the walker too, and hurried; quick to brush the snow off one of the large rocks with the smoothest surface. "Rest your arm down on here."

The rock felt ice-cold against Clementine's skin through the fabric of her sleeve, as did the winter air that ate away at what warmth her body had from where she sat on the stony ground on her knees, the snow gradually beginning to melt into her jeans. Her teeth started chattering, her every hair standing on end, quickly missing the shelter her coat gave from the elements.

Scared, oh god she was so scared.

The fast beating of her heart increased when Luke pulled up the sleeve of her shirt and gripped her wrist securely near her elbow; feeling like a drum was banging against her ribcage, and at any second it would burst and she would die.

And when Clementine looked up unable to hide her fear or the tears, she saw it wasn't any easier for Luke either; those brows furrowed in sympathy for her when their eyes briefly met. He was probably wishing that it was the other way around, like he had once said to her when he told her of the time he'd lost his family; burdened with the same looks of regret whenever another member of their group was claimed victim to the dead or to living.

Hacking apart walkers, to skinning and cutting up meat for dinner from hunted prey, it hadn't made him any less immune when it came down to removing the infected hand of a living person, little less the one he had befriended and taught to play poker, though a poor player he was.

"I gotta take more off below the bite, to be sure," Luke said, and as more tears filled Clementine's eyes, she thought she'd felt a tremor go through his own hand that was clamped around her wrist tightly. "You ready?"

Like she really had a choice, yet the sounds of the walkers nearby reminded them of the urgency of the things, and that of the infection that was probably spreading out from the bites on her hand, if her whole body wasn't infested with it already.

A single small nod was the best Clementine could manage.

She clenched her eyelids shut, sniffling when blade rested against her forearm, before Luke raised it. And with several tensed breaths, he swung the machete down.

One strike was all it took…

* * *

When Clementine was six, she had fallen out of her tree house and broken her leg. The bone had gone right through the skin and everything. It was gross.

Her mom was in hysterics, blaming her dad for putting it up in the first place, and telling him over and over in the hospital after Clementine's leg was in a cast and fixed up that he should take it down that same summer he'd built it for her. Naturally despite the seriousness of her injuries, her dad declined. He had argued; that they couldn't protect her from everything; that things like scraps, bruises and even broken bones were a part of growing up, and that there were going to be times when she'd fall and have get herself back up without their help. He was right of course, yet on her mom's insistence, he did rebuild the ladder so it was easier for their little girl to climb it again once she was fit and well, not that she really went up there much after that.

The pain of that broken leg Clementine had gotten that day, it...it didn't compare to the pain she was experiencing now. No, by far it was the worst agony imaginable, as if her arm had been dipped in boiling hot water and she couldn't pull it back out.

It was so bad, that with every living, breathing moment, she wished Luke would just kill her.

Her crying soon attracted those few walkers out from the woods, as Luke rushed to tie a tourniquet on her arm and bandage it up. Clementine hadn't the time to put her coat or rucksack back on, not even able to muster the strength through the suffering from her arm to do that, let alone stand on her own two feet. It was down to the young man to drape the coat around her, swinging her small rucksack over one shoulder with his own as Luke picked her up and carried her off with only seconds to spare; those walkers within just barely a few steps of reaching them.

Clementine could hear them, _see_ the dead pursuing them from over Luke's shoulder; arms outstretched with gaping jaws of broken teeth, their stiff legs unable to carried them fast enough in the cold that some toppled over like drunks in their failure to catch up to them.

Everything else became a blur, unable to focus through the pain and blood loss that was making her dizzy. All Clementine could hear was Luke's voice while he ran, trying to keep her conscious as the blood from her severed arm bled through onto her clothes from those makeshift bandages, her body trembling as she started to go into shock.

"It's going be okay, you're going alright. Stay with me kiddo!"

The last thing she saw was the sky above them, a pale blue that was hollow and cold as the winter that had stolen the last of their friends away; a final thought to process through her head before everything went dark.

_'Big, liar…'_

* * *

In her nightmares, she dreamed of Lee.

They were back inside the jewellery store; his right arm chained to that radiator, with his body slacked against it without a single breath of life coming out of him. She was standing in the doorway of that office, small and afraid as she watched him stir, his once kind eyes resembling two blank canvases. The man he used to be was gone, and in his place, was a mindless cannibal, just the same as all those that roamed the streets outside.

**As** h**e**'d r**a**i**se**d **t**h**at** **st**u**m**p of h**is** **a**r**m** ou**t** **t**o h**e**r, l**etti**ng ou**t** **a** **h**oa**r**s**el**y **m**o**a**n, **it** w**a**s ou**tsi**d**e** C**leme**n**ti**n**e** **s**udd**e**n**l**y f**ou**n**d** h**e**r**sel**f, r**i**gh**t** **b**y **t**h**e** **m**ot**el i**n **Sa**v**a**nn**a**h. **T**h**e** c**ro**wd**s** **o**f w**a**l**ke**r**s** w**e**r**e** **e**v**e**ry**wh**er**e**, **b**u**t** **t**h**e**y w**e**r**e**n'**t** ju**st** **a**ny w**al**k**e**r**s**. **T**h**e**y w**e**r**e t**h**e** **st**r**a**ng**e**r **s**h**e**'d **m**e**t**, fr**ie**nd**s**h**i**p**s** **s**h**e**'d **l**o**st**, **a**n**d** **t**h**e** f**amil**y **s**h**e** n**e**v**e**r go**t** **a** ch**a**nc**e t**o **sa**y** go**od**b**y**e t**o...

Clementine was right there in the middle of the street, as they all walked in slow lumbering circles around her as if she didn't exist, like they couldn't really see her there. Whilst in her hands, she was holding something; plastic grasped among her fingers.

It was the walkie-talkie Lee had given to replace her old one, her favourite stickers still there.

**'_Clementine, oh Clementiiiiine…'_**

She dropped it on the ground at the voice that crackled out, belonging to the that of the man whose name she had never caught, because on his insistence he had said to only to address him as _daddy _and nothing else; going into a fit of rage if she hadn't .

The man who told her…t-told her…

**'_I know where to find your parents, Clementine. Come outside, I'm right outback see? But don't you tell anyone, it'll be our little secret.'_**

He'd dragged her down the street by the arm, hadn't even allowed her to pick up her hat that had been blown off in the wind when climbing over that metal fence. The stranger said they needed to hurry, because her parents were in trouble. And the worst thing about it was, she let herself believe it…

It was all her fault. All Clementine wanted was to find them so badly; had gotten upset when Lee said they couldn't go searching for her parents after he promised that they would. She was so angry and sad, that she hadn't bothered in telling anybody where she was going when the voice of that stranger came through on the walkie-talkie, despite all their warnings not to listen to him. Clementine hadn't even woken Lee when she left, hesitating at those glass doors to where he'd been fast asleep on the sofa, worn out from their planned break-in to Crawford.

If she had just waked him up, told him about the voice talking again, everything would be so different. Because of that; because of her mistakes, she got them all killed. Ben would have never fallen, Omid wouldn't have gotten shot, Christa wouldn't have lost her baby and have turned into a walker, Kenny would still be with them...and Lee, he would never have gotten bitten.

They died because of her, for being so stupid.

"I hate you...I…I-I hate _you_!"

The baseball bat from the store was suddenly in Clementine's hands, her arms raising it above her head as she brought it down on the walkie-talkie, smashing it.

"I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU! **I HATE YOU!"**

She struck it, again and again, black plastic and wiring flying out everywhere across the street no longer crowded with the dead. It was just her in that desolate town, and the voice of that stranger that never went away.

**'_Clementiiiine? Can you hear me Clementiiiiine?'_**

Bl**oo**d **see**p**e**d **o**u**t** fr**o**m **insi**d**es** **o**f **t**h**e** walk**ie**-**t**alk**ie**, **t**h**e** laugh**te**r **o**f **t**h**e** **st**rang**e**r c**o**m**in**g fr**o**m **i**t mak**in**g h**e**r **s**w**in**g **t**h**e** ba**t** hard**e**r, h**i**tt**i**ng **it** w**it**h all h**e**r **st**r**en**g**t**h a**s** **t**h**e** w**o**rld b**e**ga**n** dull**in**g **to** bla**c**k l**i**k**e** **t**h**e** **en**d **o**f a f**i**lm.

Clementine screamed at the top of her lungs, her throat going raw as that baseball bat snapped clean in two.

**"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! _I HATE YOU!_"**

**T**h**e** v**oi**c**e** **o**f th**e** s**t**ra**n**g**e**r **w**as go**ne**, h**e**r h**an**d**s** u**n**abl**e t**o f**eel** **t**h**e** br**o**k**en** **b**a**se**ba**ll** ba**t** a**n**ymor**e**. A**n**d **s**h**e** wa**s** fa**l**li**n**g, **f**ad**in**g **a**wa**y**…

* * *

**Searing pain erupts in her arm, burning through tissue, muscle and bone; the smell of meat cooking. A cry escapes her throat, disappearing before reality slips again…**

* * *

Buildings aflame in the community who couldn't be trusted; running for their lives from the men that wanted them dead. A large number their group had been either tortured or killed; the surviving few separated during the blaze to engulf the town and most of the surrounding wilderness, attracting walkers for miles.

Her and Sarah, they'd escaped together, but that man, Nate, was persistent, much more than Carver ever was. At first Clementine thought Nate was just weird, friendly, but _weird_. And then she saw through to what his true intentions were and why he took such a liking to her and Sarah; the things Christa warned her about.

When the group was scattered in the chaos walkers and gunfire, Nate came after them. He'd hunted them down like animals, smiling from ear-to-ear as if he'd enjoyed making them run scared through the woods; a living breathing maniac who made the St. Johns and her mother seem sane in comparison.

Clementine dreamt of it now, that rundown warehouse they had both hidden in crouched behind some forklift, surrounded by shelves of crates and boxes reaching as high as the ceiling; that large room carrying the echos of Nate's footsteps and both his sing-song voice as he had called out to them both.

"Little lambs, oh where are you little lambs?"

A shotgun he brandished, his clothes and grinning face still caked in fresh blood from where he'd beaten Carlos to death. The doctor had stood up to him to buy both Clementine and Sarah time to get away; an act of bravery that cost him his life, and spared them theirs…but for only a while.

At her side, Sarah had cried uncontrollably, her shoulder shaking and eyes wide in both terror and loss over her father's death that she'd been forced to hear while they had run for their lives. It was Sarah's sobs that drew Nate to them, unable to keep herself quiet enough. Even when Clementine begged her to hush up, Nate's taunting had only made Sarah worse.

"I can hear yoooou."

In the end they had needed to make a break for it. The main entrance they'd come through too risky with where Nate was and so many walkers out front. So, Clementine decided they would have to try for the far end of that dark warehouse, in the hopes of finding a back door.

Sarah was too all too willing to agree.

Shoes pounding on that floor, the two broke into a run, darting out into the open with each other's hand held tight as Clementine had practically pulled the tearful Sarah along, pleading with her to hurry.

"Haha! There you aaaare!"

They didn't get far before that gunshot went off behind them, the sound booming out throughout that warehouse and ringing loudly in their ears. Nate was in haste pursuit, his laughter echoing all around them as another shot was fired, and Sarah had…

**'_A pinky swear's forever.'_**

One second Sarah was running, and then the next she wasn't. No scream, no cry of surprise, Sarah's hand had simply slipped right out from Clementine's grasp, and she just barely caught sight of the older girl in time to see her body go crashing to the cement floor with a thud, _dead_.

Nate had shot her right in the head, a dark puddle of blood gathering quickly near Clementine's feet, as she'd watched Sarah's broken thick rimmed glasses disappear within it. While Nate, he had just found it all hilarious, sniggering at the sight of the poor dead girl as he'd looked impressed with himself for ending her life.

"Well fuck, there I had to go and ruin myself a tasty feast. Not that you were much of a looker sweetcheeks," He'd said walking through the blood, to where Nate poked the muzzle of that shotgun into Sarah's side, and he'd cruelly let off another bullet, her body jerking as another hole was blown into her.

The ringing still in her ears, Clementine had stood there trembling in shock, edging slowly back when Nate raised that blooded weapon again, and sneered at her. "Guess I'll have to aim lower with you little one. Don't want to spoil the dessert."

Bl**oo**d dripp**e**d d**o**w**n** fr**om** **t**h**e** **t**all m**et**al **s**h**e**lv**es**, p**o**uri**n**g **o**u**t** fr**om t**h**e** b**o**x**es** a**n**d c**ra**t**_e_s **a**s** i**t** **r**ai**ne**d d**o**w**n** **on** **t**h**e **pai**r **in a **s**h**o**w**er o**f r**e**d. I**t t**ur**ne**d to **r**ai**n**, the war**e**h**o**u**se** di**s**app**e**ari**n**g, a**n**d a l**on**g **ro**ad app**e**a**re**d b**e**f**ore** h**er**, cu**ttin**g **t**h**ro**ugh **t**h**e** f**orest** a**n**d l**e**adi**n**g **o**ff i**nto** **t**h**e **cl**o**udy **n**igh**t **wh**ere** **t**h**e** fla**mes** **o**f a bur**n**i**n**g **to**w**n** **s**c**o**rch**e**d **t**h**e** h**o**riz**on**.

Headlights from a truck blinded her, its engine roaring as that vehicle had raced past her. Wheels screeched on the wet road as the driver slammed on the breaks and Clementine heard the beginnings of a scream right before the truck mowed down the man chasing her; the killer enraged at being outsmarted by a little girl.

Luke and Nick, they had found her when searching around for the rest of their group with that truck they'd taken during their escape. The memory to Clementine was one of relief, having hurried towards them, practically tackling into Luke in a fit of tears after being so close to getting caught by the crazed Nate; who given a minute more, may have beaten her death with that empty shotgun like he had done Carlos, or done things to her worse than death.

Nate resembled nothing more than road kill after the two hit him with their truck. His body ha landed in a ditch, limbs twisted up and broken as the rest of him as that had man groaned in pain, coughing up blood that he was losing fast. Yet Clementine hadn't cared that he was dying or that it would be painful…only glad, that he wouldn't hurt anybody, not anymore.

Her arms had been around Luke, her fingers clinging tightly to the back of his jacket as she listened to Nick take out his anger on that barely conscious monster living in a man's flesh; kicking and stomping Nate with such force, Clementine had squirmed at every sickening sound of bones snapping through that pouring rain.

In the passenger seat, the cries from Rebecca's baby wailed loudly from inside the truck; the newborn wrapped in nothing but a table-cloth, the only thing they'd had time to dress the baby in after she was cut out from her dead mother before the community went up in smoke.

The four of them, they were all that had survived. And many more might've too, if it hadn't been for Nate.

"You sick fuck! Fucking bastard! I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

"Nick, that's enough! Nick!"

"Shut up! Don't tell me what to do! It's never enough!" Nick had stopped, angrily thrusting a finger at the bloody bandage wrapped around his head. "The bastard cut out my fucking eye and butchered the rest of us! And then he thinks he can get off at shooting pregnant women and chasing little girls too!? Excuse me if you haven't got a problem with that Luke, coz fuckers like this don't deserve shit!"

Luke's protective arms around her loosened as he'd straightened up, yelling at his friend through the storm. "What, you think I ain't pissed off too? Believe me I hate him as much as the next person, but get yourself the fuck together Nick! More of his buddies will be out lookin for us and you stickin' around to kick the shit out of that asshole ain't gonna do us no favors. The horse is dead, don't beat it no more!"

"Oh yeah that'll be lot of fun, running. Hah! Like a shitload of good that's ever done us! And they wouldn't still fucking be after us if you hadn't taken the stupid baby!"

"The whole place was overrun! What the hell did you expect me to do? Leave it with the lurkers for a barbecue?"

"Anything's better than-"

"Will you two just STOP!"

Thunder had clashed in the skies, the rain falling heavier as the two men stopped arguing. And as they'd stood there drenched from that storm, listening to the crying newborn...the familiar sound of walkers had grazed Clementine's hearing; her eyes quickly spotting the undead beginning to emerge from the forest on all sides; lured there by the commotion from all the shouting.

Quick Nick was to climb out from the ditch, removing the gun from the holster on his hip; not to shoot down walkers, but the half-dead man they'd knocked down with their truck just minutes before.

Luke hadn't given him the chance. "Leave him, he ain't worth the bullets."

Begrudgingly Nick obeyed with a curse under his breath, reluctantly holstering the weapon again as he'd gone to join them in making their getaway. Maybe Clementine would've gotten in the truck straight away on Luke's insistence, yet the sight of Nate lying there on the verge of death stirred something in her, a hatred she had never felt so strongly before.

So strong it was, that in a split second decision on Nick moving passed her; she'd reached out and snatched the gun from its holster.

"H-Hey!"

"Clementine!"

Over to the crippled man she had walked while the dead slowly but surely got closer; her thumb undoing the safety on the pistol without hesitation. But before Clementine could even reach Nate's body, when Luke grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks.

"The hell you think you're doing? Clem, this isn't the time for-"

"Let me do it," she cut him off with, the coldness she harboured unsettling even her. But…but Clementine couldn't listen to him, couldn't let any of what Nate had gone go. It hadn't mattered if walkers feasted on him, she wanted to be the one that did it, that killed him.

Perhaps in some way Luke had realized that too, after she'd refused to budge. "This isn't the same as shooting a lurker, you get that right?"

The memory of that stranger to have been strangling Lee in that hotel room came back to her, right before the bullet pierced his brain at the press of that trigger; dead by her own hands. And then Lee, when he'd asked her to shoot him so didn't turn; that final sad look given to her before his eyes closed forever.

Clementine gripped the gun securely, the weight of it heavy in her hands as the rain had continued to fall.

"I know, but I have to."

"No you don't. Just, you can walk away from this, alright? It don't make you no coward for it."

Nate wouldn't have lived. No ambulance would've come by and taken him to hospital, where paid doctors and nurses would be forced to save the life of somebody who didn't deserve to be saved. Nate would've died, whether she'd put a bullet through his head or not.

The truth of it was, Luke just didn't want her killing for the sake of revenge. Revenge did things to people, brought out the worst in them and often drove the weakest of minds to insanity. Clementine had seen that first-hand with Kenny, when he had tried to kill Ben over losing Katjaa and Duck; had watched Lilly shoot Carly in the face over the misconception the woman was the one trading with the bandits. Then there was the stranger that wanted Lee dead, all because he blamed him for the death of his family…to even Lee himself, who had told her that he had murdered a man for having an affair with his wife in a moment of uncontrollable anger, the same anger that had driven Lee to kill the St. John's after what their family had done to them...

To seek revenge on loved ones murdered? A long time ago, Clementine would never have considered it. But so much had happened in those years, her eyes a witness to the cruelty of how low humans could really go and how far people could be pushed until they cracked. And after somehow managing to live through it all, Clementine had finally reached her own limit.

Some people didn't deserve to die for revenge…but Nate, he was an exception.

Beneath her favourite cap, Clementine had looked up back at Luke with her eyes open like windows, letting him to see that it would kill her inside to let Sarah and everyone else's deaths go unanswered. Her mind couldn't be changed.

"Please…"

Time ticking away and few words left to say, with a heavy heart Luke had let her go, allowing Clementine to take those last few steps to edge of the ditch where Nate laid mangled up in the grass and nettles.

The monster hadn't even known she was there. Nick had beaten him senseless; his every breath wheezy and bubbling with eyes swollen shut as the rain had kept washing away the blood running from his broken nose. Yet despite how pitiful he looked, it did nothing to sway her, as she'd soon raised the gun, aiming it at his head.

Th**e ra**ttl**i**ng **o**f **a** t**rai**n c**ar**t **so**und**ed** **i**n th**e** w**i**n**d** wh**i**pp**i**ng th**e** **rai**n **i**n h**er** f**a**c**e**, th**e** r**oa**d f**ee**l**in**g l**i**k**e i**t w**as** **a**lm**os**t **s**h**a**k**i**ng b**e**n**ea**th h**er** f**ee**t. B**e**h**i**n**d** h**er**, **a** p**air o**f h**a**n**ds** cl**os**e**d** **a**r**ou**n**d** h**er** e**a**r**s**, **a** l**os**t v**oi**c**e** **o**f gu**ida**nc**e** **s**p**ea**k**i**ng t**o** h**er** **as** h**e** h**ad** d**o**n**e** th**a**t d**a**y **f**r**o**m** a**ll th**ose** y**e**a**r**s b**e**f**o**r**e**.

**'_To aim, you look right down the top, through that notch. Line up the site at the end with your target.'_**

Breathing deeply, her finger rested on the trigger.

**'_Keep it steady…'_**

C**le**m**ent**in**e** **f**ir**ed**, **a**n**d** **Na**t**e**'s h**e**a**d** **e**xp**l**o**de**d i**n** **a** bu**r**s**t** o**f** g**re**e**n** **g**l**a**ss, **t**h**e** wo**rl**d sh**att**er**in**g **i**n**t**o **a** mi**lli**o**n** pi**e**c**es** **al**o**n**g w**it**h i**t**. **A**n**d** i**t** w**a**s j**u**s**t** h**er**, **a**lo**ne** wi**t**h **t**h**at** gu**n** a**nd** **t**h**e** s**o**u**nd** **o**f **t**h**at r**ai**n** sh**e** cou**l**d**n't** f**e**e**l** **an**ymo**re**.

No remorse and no regrets, though all the same there wasn't satisfaction at justice being done. Killing Nate, it hadn't made Clementine feel any better, not when the people most important to her were still dead…

* * *

She awoke to pain; the sharp stabbing kind that was swift in bringing her back to the waking world and keeping her there within its clutches. Her body seized up as her tired eyes opened, and through the haze of her vision she saw a ceiling decorated in cobwebs; an orange glow flickering across it like the embers from a camp fire.

Clementine wasn't in the cold anymore, the woods and snow gone. On an old bed she found herself resting on, the many layers of those thick blankets tucked around her small frame with several mismatching pillows placed behind her head. They all smelt faint with mold, like they hadn't been used or washed in a long time.

Her arm, it really hurt…

The springs of that bed creaked under her weight, finding it a struggle to sit herself up. Tipsy Clementine's head fell forward, her stomach knotting as bile reached her throat, and she fought to keep it down.

It was dark in that room, night-time judging from the lack of light coming in through the curtains. It was somebody's house, dusty ornaments and a few framed landscape paintings on the walls, but nothing that was sentimental like family photographs or trinkets. A spare room for guests, maybe. It had its own fire stove too; a small metal thing that burned brightly, keeping the room-

Clementine nearly jumped out of her skin when she spotted the figure sitting in the chair not far from her. The flickering glows of the stove dancing off the contours of their features soon have her relaxing again, her held breath let go of.

It was Luke. He was fast asleep, snoozing lightly with his head leaned awkwardly forward and arms crossed in front of him. That wooden chair had been pulled up close to her bed, as if he'd been keeping an eye on her for some time, or tried to.

Even in rest, Luke looked exhausted. Then again, neither one of them had slept too well these last few weeks on the road. Things hadn't been right for a long time...

Away Clementine wiped the sweat from her forehead, the need to vomit again so overpowering that she nearly gagged. She didn't feel good, her strength brittle. And unfortunately for her, an annoying pressure in her bladder well-informed her that she was in desperate need of using the bathroom, not that many toilets really worked in the world anymore. Still, she had to get up.

Combing a hand through her head, a slight panic overwhelmed her on noticing her old favorite cap was missing. Clementine had soon found it, resting on the nightstand right near her pillows, and relieved she went to reach for it...when she nearly cry out at the unbearable pain to intensify from her left arm when she had gone to move it.

Her eyes immediately fell on the blankets on that bed, to where her left arm was hidden beneath them. And it was then she remember it, the river, the machete; the _blood_.

'_**Clementine, honey. My arm is gone because I cut off.'**_

'_**Why would you do that?'**_

'_**Because…'**_

Shaking, she gripped the edge of the blankets, peeling them back, slowly.

The sleeve of her shirt had been cut away with scissors just at the elbow where fresh bandages were tightly wrapped; covering up the beginning of that brutal scar she'd gotten from Sam in the camp site. The further down the bandages went, they discoloured into a darker shade in that the low dancing light of that stove, to where the bandages abruptly ended halfway down her forearm…wrapped around a stump.

No...

A tiny whimper escaped her as she carefully raised her arm, with every blink, wishing, _praying_ what she was seeing wasn't true; that it was all some trick of the light and everything before hadn't really happened. But it had, it really had, and this wasn't any illusion. Part of Clementine's arm, it was_ gone__._

She'd seen it there, that diseased limb of hers lying down by the river among the rocks in the snow and blood; the fingers twitching even though the strings that connected it to her were cut. And it was still out there now, left to rot to the bones or to be chewed to pieces by walkers. The same fates, Clementine would wind up suffering from sooner or later if death got his way with her. She would die like everybody else...

Something broke within Clementine then, her every burden of guilt and grief crushing her insides and tearing her apart. She didn't fight it, let herself give into the tears, not caring anymore about staying strong or pretending to put on a brave face to prove her worth.

In those two years and half years since the dead started to walking the earth, never had Clementine missed her parents more than she did now…just as much, as she missed the friends and people that should've still been here with her now, alive and well.

Nobody should've died; _no one._

The sounds of her sobs were to eventually wake Luke up. The young man quick to console her like the big brother she never had, giving her the long needed hug that Clementine clung onto with her life, afraid to let him go.

"Give it back! G-Give it back!" she cried into Luke's shirt, letting out everything she'd repressed. And Luke, he had just held her, patting her back gently like how her dad used to whenever Clementine had bad dreams when she was little. But none of Luke's words would make anything better, nor with what borrowed time he'd given her, if it wasn't already running out.

"It's okay, Clem. It's okay."

Another big lie that Luke couldn't put much faith in to even try lying convincingly to her. Because like Clementine, neither one knew how long she had or if they'd caught it in time.

All that was left for them to do now, was wait...


	2. Part 2

A/N:This story has been made into a three-parter now, instead of two-part fic. I have a terrible habit of planning how long a story will be, and the material doubling when put to paper. I still have quite a bit to do before writing the final scenes and with writer's block torturing me on a story of Parasite Eve 2, I figured I'd get this one to you guys a bit sooner.

For future readers, Episode 2 on the second season is the most recent one out by this point, a reason I've chosen to include little mentions of it. But this is still very much an A/U. Plot points might be similar, while other things will be entirely different from the game as you will soon see.

Without further ado, enjoy :P

* * *

_**The Walking Dead**_

_Growing Pains…_

[Part 2/3]

* * *

It was snowing again.

It had snowed the day before yesterday, and the one before that too. Back in Georgia when Clementine was little, this much snow would've been a dream come true. They had been lucky to get snow flurries a few a days in the year, a sight as rare as rainbows.

There was always so much of it in the movies or on the news elsewhere in other states, and Clementine often, if always, envied those people who made a fuss about having so much of it; especially near Christmas with all the festivities. She used to hope it would snow enough to close her school down, so she could go have snowball fights with her friends and ride sleds and make snow angels all day long, without boring homework to annoy and hurt her poor brain.

Years ago, Clementine might have sprung from the bed and run to that window in excitement, her nose pressed to the glass with a giddy smile on her face at seeing that garden, and the fields and woodlands beyond them transformed into something almost magical by that snow. All too eager she probably would have run down those stairs, tugged on her coat and boots to go to play outside before her parents had even woken up, _if,_ they had still been here.

Yeah, that's what the old her would've done if things were like they used to be, when the dead didn't walk.

Laid there curled up on her side, watching those tiny snowflakes fall from outside that bedroom window, Clementine didn't feel much of anything; nothing resembling close to joy. In the weeks travelling further up north, so much snow have fallen that Clementine just couldn't stand it anymore, nor the cold that it brought along with it. She never would've thought it before then, but she just wanted all that the snow to melt, and to feel the sun on her face again.

But that's why they had come this far in the first place, because the colder it got, the slower the walkers were. And lack of good weather was going to be expected…still, Clementine didn't think she would hate it this much. And as if the cold had done them any real good favors so far. Maybe if it hadn't been for that stupid snow, she never would have…

There was a creaking on the stairs, someone coming up from the first floor, and from out of the corner of Clementine's vision, she saw Luke appear in the doorway, giving that open door a friendly knock.

"Can I come in?"

He was carrying something, a steaming bowl of what looked like spaghetti, the smell making her tummy ache and her mouth water. They had been running low on food these last few days before coming here, and Clementine couldn't remember the last time she had actually had a warm meal that wasn't from a can.

Clementine was almost tempted to answer, but her lips sealed shut and refused to say a word in that sudden lack of appetite on remembering what'd happen a day before. Instead, she was to turn her attention back to that window, watching more of the snowfall from those white clouds.

"I'll take that as a yes then," Luke said, choosing to walk in anyway, holding out that bowl to her when he reached her bedside. "Here, I thought you might-"

Before he could even finish, Clementine scrunched her nose up, and silently pulled the blankets over her head; the sight of her bandaged stump hidden there with her instantly making her empty stomach twist in disgust.

Those strong painkillers Luke found in this house did their bit in numbing the pain, _a little_. Unfortunately like everything else they were in short supply and would soon run out, if she lasted that long. The freakish thing was Clementine could still feel it there, her hand, and the part of her forearm that was missing. She didn't know if that was a good thing or not. She'd never known anybody who had lost a limb before…at least, back in the old days. And Lee, there'd been little time for them to talk after he'd found her at the hotel...

"Come on, you gotta eat something," Luke said with some encouragement to it, but her hand only gripped those blankets tighter, curling up into a smaller ball.

Eyes fixed on that ugly stump of hers, Clementine spoke.

"What's the point…?"

Luke was lucky in finding this place, after carrying out that amputation and escaping those walkers. Clementine had lost a lot of blood, a _minor_ error on Luke's part as hadn't tied the tourniquet on her arm tight enough when hurrying to get the two of them safely away. When he had stopped to correct it, it was about that same time he had spotted this farmhouse in the distance. Most the supplies people needed by with were already taken with just the bare scraps left over, but it was still well defended with the high hedges and stone walls to keep most walkers away. So long as they didn't start-up a disco with booming music and flashing lights, they would be safe.

Clementine's stump had been cauterised and washed up, and her clothes changed with some fresh ones in her backpack, since those she had previously been wearing were too soaked through with blood. There wasn't anything else that could be done, but to rest until she got her strength back and recovered, _hopefully_. Christa had told her once that they hadn't cut off Lee's arm until nearly an hour after he was bitten. For Clementine, it'd been maybe a few minutes. And unlike Pete, they'd had a means to stop the bleeding. But the only advantages Clementine had against turning that Lee hadn't back then, was time, and a bit of luck. Still, waiting games were never her favorite to play.

Luke was quiet for a little, before he managed to speak with some sincerity.

"It's been over a day, Clem. If you were gonna turn you'd be showing it by now."

She could only clench her jaw tighter shut, unable to accept it. There was no definitive assurance that she was in the clear. For all they were aware of, they may have only slowed the process down and that was why Clementine didn't have a fever, not yet. All people bitten by a walker were overtaken by the infection at different times depending on their immunity, and could turn hours or even minutes after dying too. That was one disturbing piece of information Carver had given her during their stay at his camp, and why he always aimed for the head in every person that he killed.

She hated Luke trying to stay positive for her sakes, and she hated him taking part of her arm off too, even if he had no choice and had apologised about it to her after...

Clementine just wanted to know everything would be okay, without getting her hopes up.

"I'm not hungry."

Luke didn't give any immediate reply to that, dithering for a while before she heard that bowl be placed down on the nightstand. No signs in his voice of disappointment at her stubbornness. No, in fact when Luke was to finally talk again, he almost sounded _humored_.

"Really now? Well that's a darn shame. If you've got no appetite, guess you won't be wanting any of this then."

At first Clementine thought he was talking about the spaghetti, and did so until she heard the sound of a wrapper while Luke began walking away to leave the room; the noise that was enough in tempting her to peer out from the top of those blankets.

In Luke's hands, she saw something. "What's that?"

"What, _this_?" he said, acting a little too surprised as he held it up from where he stalled briefly near the door. And she saw it, a candy wrapper.

It was a hazelnut bar, the ones she and her mom used to like.

If not for the blood loss, Clementine would have sat up faster. "W…We have chocolate!?"

"Sure do. Found a few of 'em downstairs wedged behind a shelf stack full of coffee. Figure the scavengers didn't have a taste for anything caffeine," Luke told her while as he casually passed that candy bar from hand to hand like it were a basketball. "Tried one, they still taste pretty good."

Chocolate was a luxury nowadays. Survivors like themselves were always picking off the good stuff, savoring the tastes of foods that would soon be too far gone past their expiry to be edible anymore. Even chocolate would be claimed a victim to this eventually. It's what happened when nobody was growing or producing food anymore.

The last time Clementine had tasted chocolate was from three chocolate coins Sarah discovered at the bottom of the box of decorations at the ski lodge, and secretly shared them with her after a pinky swear not to tell the others. Before that it was when Omid came across small box of chocolates in an apartment that he, Christa and herself had happily eaten together those few weeks before he died. But the last real chocolate bar Clementine had eaten was back when Chuck introduced himself, giving one to her and Ben, after…after Duck got bit, and Carley murdered.

"Can, I-"

"Nuh uh, okay you know the deal," Luke smirked and pointed over at the bowl of spaghetti on his way out. "Eat up and it's yours, but only if you've picked that bowl clean. I won't be accepting anything less."

"But, not even-"

"Nope!

He was already heading downstairs before Clementine could protest further, perhaps to go off and make something for himself, or to hold her candy bar at munch point.

From the doorway to that bowl Clementine's gaze fell on, slowly resigning herself into picking it up and resting the bowl carefully on her lap. It must've been ages that she stared at that spaghetti, watching the steam disperse from it little by little and that pleasing smell too much to resist on an empty stomach.

Her hand taking a hold of that fork, she twirled the stringy spaghetti around it, and ate. It tasted a little stale, nowhere near as good as that chocolate bar probably would be right about now; with its hazelnut creamy centre…and…and..

Why did Luke have to bribe her with her favorite chocolate? This wasn't fair.

"Cheater," Clementine mumbled under her breath, only to pull a face when she heard Luke call to her from all the way downstairs.

"I heard that."

Shoot, double shoot...

* * *

A few weeks later after the incident with Carver and his crazed little community, two more lives were crossed off.

Without Rebecca or Alvin around, it was just her, Luke and Nick to take care of the baby. They'd tried to make it work, searching through houses and what was left in the stores for diapers, blankets; all the things a newborn needed. They had even gone as far as to read 'first baby' books to brush up on the basics on tending to the child. Yet Rebecca's words came back to Clementine every time that newborn cried, leaving her with doubt over their future.

What world was this to be raising a baby up in?

Christa and Omid, they had once had those same worries for their unborn baby, wanting to find both a decent and safe enough place to bring their child into the world and raise him. The couple had gotten Clementine involved too, teaching her the little things like how she would have to warm up the milk and check the temperature of it on her wrist, to how to she would need change diapers too. It was all so Clementine could help them and be a sister to 'little Omid' as the man himself used to say with a droll humor that annoyed Christa to no end.

Cradling Rebecca's baby in her arms, it'd felt like Clementine was going through the scenes all over again. Deja-vu, wasn't that what they called it?

Caring for a newborn in an apocalypse it was both a challenge and a risk. On the road, constantly moving with the threats of gangs or walkers everywhere, it was tough. Aside from what Christa and Omid taught her, not one of them had much experience with looking after an actual baby, and books only helped so much. When it came down to it, an eleven and an half year old girl with two guys from the country who'd never settled down with anybody while chasing dreams of creating a famous liquor brand, well, they weren't the best of people out there left to be taking on the role of parents .

Yet still, the trio had done what they could. They'd had to for Rebecca's sakes, who had begged to Luke with every last ounce of strength left in her after being shot, to not let any harm come to her child. And most importantly, for Carver not to take the baby away…

"We should name her something."

Nick didn't even spare Clementine a glance from where he'd sat on that couch, his fingertips patting at that dark eyepatch he still hadn't gotten adjusted to wearing at that point, just as much as he hadn't likened to his new cap, having favored his old one much more.

"Why bother?" he'd asked dully, his remark receiving a scornful look from Luke who'd been busy checking the last of the windows in that living room were secure in that darkening evening.

"Jesus Nick, do you have to talk like that?"

"Talk like what? I'm speakin' the truth here," Nick had stated bitterly, taking a swig of his beer; the last can discovered in a stash a few days ago that he'd been quick to use up. "Admit it, you've been thinkin' it too. The kid's fucked. We'll all be corpses before even make it to Wellington, I don't know why we're even tryin'."

They'd been fortunate with the truck the two men used to escape Carver's camp, but when that had run out of gas, they couldn't find any more as nearly every gas station and car in the area was drained empty from scavengers with the same plans in mind. So, from then on they had to walk and because of that, it meant taking even _more_ risks. Every few hours the baby had needed feeding and her diaper changed, and it was dangerously inconvenient in a world full of walkers to have a crying infant drawing attention to them.

Looking out for themselves and the newborn, it'd been a strain on all of them. Yet it was Nick was the one to have started to admit defeat to the whole plan of going north, that whenever any alcohol was discovered, Nick always grabbed it. In fact, his drinking problem had steadily been getting worse that Luke had ended up talked some sense into him in private the day before; a _talk,_ that was the reason Luke spotted a fresh bruise on his cheek below his right eye that evening.

"Coz it's the best shot we got, that's why. And we're all that baby has for a future and ain't leavin' her with just anybody we come by," Luke had said tensely as he'd gone to fetch the candles, his fists clenched noticeably tighter on having passed by his friend as he'd done his best to keep his cool. "If so how bout you just can the attitude, alright?"

Nick looked as though he'd wanted to say something back to that, and none too nicely a comment. It was only because he'd caught Clementine staring at him from where she was on that other couch with that baby in her arms, that Nick held off whatever was on the tip of his tongue, and just snorted, soon to have down more of that beer.

"Whatever, doesn't change nothin'."

There were a lot of secrets Clementine kept to herself, and one of them was that she had seen enough death to not believe in silly things like happy endings anymore. Though when she'd looked down at that tiny baby wrapped up in that pink cotton blanket, with those beautiful brown eyes staring up at her innocently while suckling from that bottle of milk Clementine held, she remembered thinking: how could she imagine that baby not growing up?

She hadn't _wanted_ to find out; not when that baby girl was so full of life. Seeing Christa bury her own child had been enough…

"So, you got any names in mind, Clem?" she'd heard Luke ask her while he'd gone about lighting those candles; some simple tealight ones placed on saucers that would give a few good hours of light. They hadn't anything else. "Rebecca and Alvin passed around a bunch of names to us in the past, but nothin' solid. It can be your call if you like."

"Oh…well…" Clementine had fallen silent, because she hadn't really thought about any names in particular, or that she would even be the one to get the honors in naming the baby.

It was an important thing, giving a person their name. It couldn't be anything silly like a name for a hamster or a goldfish. It had to be something special. That was what Clementine was so mind boggled over at the time, having never been given such a responsibility before. And not a single one of the names Rebecca and Alvin had mention stuck to memory, zilch.

Both her parents had told her lots of times growing up on how they'd decided to call her Clementine, because it was all to do with how they first met. Her mom had dropped a paper bag of clementines when tripping on the sidewalk, and her dad had just happened to be the one there to help pick them up. No more said or done they went on their way...but that following week her mom had done the _exact_ same thing again, in the same part of town with same fruit, and assisted by same stranger who just happened to be walking by on his way home from work. And the rest after that, well it was history really.

Seeing Nick slouched there, that scruffy dressed man both physically and emotionally drained after those months in losing both his mom and Pete and the rest of their group, he had reminded Clementine of Kenny and all that he'd lost…but, of herself too. If it weren't for Omid and Christa stepping in after discovering her parents were dead, and Lee and everyone else disappearing from her life, Clementine wouldn't have any ideas where she might've ended up. And even when they too were gone, she still found hope in others to keep going.

It was how the name suddenly came to Clementine then; a name that needed to give somebody else hope and a purpose to hold onto, rather than just a bottle. That on focusing her attention on that little baby almost done with her bottle, Clementine answered as carefree as her smile that she'd given to no one in particular.

"I was thinking, of maybe calling her…Nicky."

The two men's reactions had differed greatly from one another; Luke cursing as he'd burnt his fingers on a lit match, while Nick had promptly spat out a mouthful of his beer he'd been about to swallow, coughing and gagging as he pounded a fist on his chest.

"Wha-the hell you are! Over my twitching maggot filled corpse!" Nick had almost shouted looking extremely ticked off, but any shame of Clementine's for having caused that young man's outburst had soon vanished on spotting Luke was leaned over that table by those candles, his shoulders shaking in silent laughing fits of hysteria. And it hadn't taken Nick very long at all to notice that his buddy wasn't on the same page as him. "Shut the fuck up, Luke! Luke, _shut up! _This is serious!"

Luke did manage to get a hold of himself, eventually; wiping the tears from his eyes with a smile cracked on his face that Clementine hadn't seen in a while.

"Nicky huh? Well it's got a nice ring to it, I gotta say."

"What? Come on, Luke! Don't tell me you're in on it with the squirt too!?" Nick protested, that vein on his forehead becoming rather prominent. "Nobody's naming no baby after me. No babies, no cars, no dogs, _nothing!_ You got that?"

"Yeah, yeah maybe you're right. Probably best we don't go confusing names here," Luke admitted regrettably and crossed his arms, giving her an apologetic look. "Sorry kid."

"Okay," Clem said glumly, and hung her head in disappointment…

…

…

…

"Nicky Junior on the other hand-"

"Fuck off Luke! Didn't you hear what I just said!?"

* * *

Nick, he once told her he hated being a screw up. There were things that he had done in the past he hadn't been proud of; nearly blasting her face off with a rifle when they first met being one of them, and that itchy trigger finger that accidentally killed an innocent who was just trying to help them out. But what he really kicked himself for was not protecting his mother, and not being able to save Pete.

Clementine had seen it in him; that he'd been starting to give up. It'd been like what Luke said; Pete was the last anchor to family he had. But like Luke had said once to her too, it was a tough world without people in it to trust, and Clementine just wanted get Nick away from that gloomy cloud hanging over his head and see that there was still a life left for him, and that he had friends that cared about them.

That was why Clementine was happy on Luke approving of the name Nicky for the baby, not that the same could be said for Nick. He'd been convinced the name was picked as he quoted 'to piss him off' but it wasn't that at all. The truth was, it was to get Nick more involved in caring for that baby, who for the most part, had distance himself from the infant, not wanting to get too attached in case the worst happened as it had to everyone else.

It'd been funny those first couple days, a sort of running gag with her and Luke really, that both would overly proclaim to the other 'Time to feed Nicky her milk!' or 'Nicky's stinky, must need a diaper change!' in Nick's vicinity, who frequently shot them glares and warned them with empty threats to knock it off.

But little by little, Clementine had started noticing the change in the man; the good kind. He didn't bluntly ignore the baby as much as he used to. Whenever she or Luke asked him to hold the infant, he did so more relaxed without that wooden stiffness to his arms as if he'd previously been holding a bomb. But also, Nick stopped making such a fuss over the new title for Rebecca's baby too.

It'd been that one night Clementine woke up to hear Nicky crying like so many other sleepless nights that their efforts had finally paid off. Barely half awake she'd wriggled herself out from the sleeping bag laid out on the floor of that kitchen diner that their tiny group decided to crash in…and got the surprise of her life to see that Nick was already awake, scooping the crying infant up from her make-shift crib inside that box, as he'd gently rocked Nicky his arms like the rookie he was, trying to calm the little baby down.

Clementine hadn't been able to do anything other than stare, almost in a state of shock by it. Though Nick soon snapped her out of it

"You gonna just sit there or are you gonna help me out?"

"Uh, sure," she'd sheepishly nodded, peeping a look over at Luke who was remarkably still asleep despite all the baby's crying…or maybe he'd been pretending, because come to think of it, he hadn't been snoring. And Luke, he _always_ snored.

Faking it or not, Luke remained out of it, so it'd been just her and Nick to attend to the baby's needs. Clementine didn't let him see it, but she'd been happy, just glad Nicky had won him over with her adorableness. Of course Nick couldn't change a diaper to save his life, and Clementine had to show him how to feed her correctly after warming up the milk on their portable gas stove used for camping, but like her dad used to say: Rome wasn't built in a day.

Clementine liked to imagine Nick might've been a good dad one day, whether to that orphaned baby or one of his own if he'd ever found anybody. Sure it may have taken him some practice, lots and lots of practice, and he might not have been perfect, nobody was. But Nick, he would've tried his hardest at what he was capable of, and trying was better than doing nothing.

Or maybe he wouldn't have been a daddy, happy as he was. Regardless, Clementine would never know, because the next day that they headed out…_walkers_...

Waves to a full blown tsunami, that's how Kenny described it, the herds of walkers that clustered together from a few dozens, to hundreds, to even tens of thousands. It'd happened in Savannah, the sound of the train drawing uncountable numbers of the undead to the town that packed the streets. And there were other massive herds out there too that roamed the lands; and if caught within them, there was no getting out, not unless you had a means of masking your scent.

There were thousands that day too, a sea of walkers that rose up from the tops of that hillside like an army, stumbling and falling over each other as they had descended on their tiny group treading that overgrown path where they had both seen and heard the undead a moment too late.

Nothing had been more scarier than running through the long wet grass with the sounds of that starving herd behind them giving chase. The walkers were slow, yet their numbers and relentlessness were their strengths, because they never tired and never stopped. If she, Luke or Nick had had tried to fight, it would have been their deaths.

They ran for what must've been miles, Nick having to dump his duffle bag on the road to carry her on his back because Clementine couldn't keep up with the pair any longer. They were out in the country with little cover, and the mass of walkers were spread out too far to ever hope getting past them without being spotted. Once one part of a herd moved in a certain direction, the rest would've followed in their plenty, and all it took was one walker, _one,_ to see them.

Their only hope was find someplace that they could hide, and wait for the herd to pass. On the highway they got that chance, finding a coach among all those abandoned vehicles gridlocked together on that road; its doors wide open and seats clear of any walkers. Luke had given Nicky to her as they'd climbed aboard, him and Nick pushing those doors shut behind them, the pair still gasping out of breath from their run by the time they'd all crouched down on the floor between those chairs, just as Clementine had seen the herd through those tinted windows beginning to come around bend of that hill.

They must've been in there for hours, staying quiet as they could, while outside the shuffling of hundreds upon thousands of feet from the risen dead walked, their bodies bumping into the side of the coach like rocks on a metal rooftop that rocked the vehicle about. It was horrible, waiting there for them to pass, their hearts beating fast and afraid that enough walkers might push the doors of that coach open and they'd be swarmed within seconds, or that baby Nicky would wake up at any moment and draw the dead to their hiding place with her crying.

It'd been miracle Nicky hadn't made a peep, sleeping through the whole ordeal in Clementine arms peacefully, while her and Luke and Nick were anything but. Yet slowly but surely that massive herd eventually were to move on, still searching for the lunch that they'd lost as the group's hideout remained blind to the dead.

A relief it was when they didn't hear the moans and groans of those walkers any longer, Luke choosing to be the one to cautiously get up and to check they had indeed gone; Clementine soon able to breathe easy again at the answer Luke had spoken.

"I think it's safe."

Nick said stood at the first chance he got, stretching his stiff limbs. "About damn time too, I need to take a piss."

"I said I _think_ it's safe. Don't mean it is!" Luke whispered irritated at his friend. "So how about keeping it down!"

"Fine, whatever. Let's just get the out this thing. It stinks like a hellhole in here."

They should've been more careful…

See, they were cooped up in there for so long, cramped on that floor that they were all just desperate to get out, Nick especially who had the weakest bladder than any guy Clementine had ever known. It was why Nick had been the one to exit the coach first, squeezing his way by Luke after the pair forced those doors open again as he'd rushed to leave without properly checking both ways first. Or maybe he had, maybe Nick had looked, but the lack of a right eye caused him to not to check all of that blindside to his vision…the blindside that concealed the female walker that had jumped on him the moment he'd stepped off the coach, knocking him down onto the road before he had to a chance to fight it off.

"Nick!"

Luke was fast to react, jumping down from those last few steps to pull the walker off that was attacking their friend, and brought his boot down hard on its skull, killing it for good.

The incident was all over within a few seconds. Yet even with quick thinking on Luke's part, it…it hadn't been enough. And both he and Clementine were soon to have realized that when Nick had staggered up, his blooded hand holding the side of his shell-shocked face, with that single eye of his wide open, unable to focused on either one of them.

"Fuck, oh fuck…"

The walker, it'd bitten Nick, had sunk its teeth right into his cheek and his lower jaw, leaving him resembling somebody who had been mauled by a wild animal. And in reality, it wasn't all that far from the truth.

It'd happened so sudden. One moment Nick was fine, and then the next he was a man on death row, with nothing that could save him or undo the unjust done to him. And the painful thing about it was just knowing that he wasn't going to make it…

Nick, he had been in such a wreck, in disbelief by it like they all were as he'd slumped down against the side of that coach, staring at the blood smeared on his hand from the bites of that walker to have begun to bleed slowly down his neck. He hadn't tried to play it tough, or laugh bitterly at the hand death had dealt for him as Clementine half expected him to, like when he'd done so lots of other times getting drunk after Pete's death.

The day Nick was bitten, he'd cried…

"Don't leave me here man. I don't wanna fuckin' die, not here."

_When you get bit, you get put down, _that was what Nick had once said those months before outside the cabin. It's what Carlos had done for Alvin when he had got bitten by accident at Carver's camp during their breakout; what Pete did for Christa when Clementine had found what was left of her old friend down by the river. That was always the cruelest thing about having a friend or loved one bitten by the undead, there was no way to help them, except for one.

But as Nick had begged for the same _not_ to be done to him, for them _not_ to ditch him on that highway to die on his own, Clementine could only think back to her parents and Lee, and if there had ever been a time that too they had feared death with that same helplessness. If Lee had been that way in the jewellery store back in Savannah, crying to her like Nick did to Luke, Clementine couldn't have pulled the trigger. That's why, there was no way she could shot Nick then, even if she did have the gun on her at the time.

A single hopeless look up at Luke had proved he was in that same frame of mind, not able to kill the friend he'd been best pals with for years and who he'd forgiven a hundred times over for all his stupid mistakes and brashness. He couldn't abandon Nick; of course Luke couldn't do that. Even if it were in vain, Luke had taken the hand of his crying friend, and pulled him up.

"Come on, let's get movin'."

And so, they had walked.

In fear of a second wave of undead, the group stuck on the highway for a bit where there was a least more cover. They'd soon come by Nick's duffle bag that he'd dropped earlier, trodden and dirty from the walkers. He'd stopped to retrieve a few clips for his gun inside, but hadn't bothered to bringing the pack with him, remarking there wasn't anything else worth taking.

Off road into the woods and across fields to hillsides they later trekked, stopping every once and while to change the baby's diaper or feed her more milk. Nick had sat detached from them every time they took a breather, refusing any food or water Luke offered him, or to even clean up the bites on the side of his face. Nick hadn't given much in the form of conversation either, with rarely a word said during those hours of near complete silence after he'd been bitten. What few words Nick did share had been out of earshot for Clementine, as he'd spoken with Luke. But he was scared. Clementine could see that on his face. Just like Pete, Nick was afraid of dying. He didn't want to go…who didn't?

With every passing hour did Nick's health begin to fail him, walking slower and slower as the day wore on; his skin turning sickly pale and that once bright blue eye going empty as the fever was to stricken his movement. By the last few miles Luke was having to help him walk; Nick's arm over his shoulder, supporting his friend for every step that was taken.

Near sunset, when they got to that wooden bridge over the stream running through the meadow, that'd been it for him. Nick couldn't go any further.

"Man, this blows," he'd said more to himself than to them. Wheezily Nick was to cough; small sputters of blood brought up from his lungs as the last of the strength in his legs was taken and he'd asked Luke to set him down, leaning him against the side of that bridge just as they'd made it half way across.

"What uh, what do you want to do?" It was clear what Luke's question entailed, if Nick wanted help to…

He hadn't though. Weakly Nick had just patted the gun in the holster on his hip from where he sat on those planks, finally given in to the fate he couldn't escape from.

"I'll take care of it, you two just go…"

"You're sure?"

"Yeah…well, no. But ya know…"

When Clementine thought no more tears would shed, Nick had looked about ready to cry again, and so had Luke, who'd knelt down to give his friend one final hug that Nick had been too glad to return, patting his buddy on the back.

"Get those two to Wellington for me, alright?"

"Sure, Nick."

"And…no gettin' any eye patches. They suck balls I'm tellin' ya."

That'd gotten a short laugh out of Luke, however short lived it was. "I'll bear that in mind."

Goodbyes were what Clementine hated the most ever since all this started. To never see somebody again, it always made her feel sad. Too often there was never a chance to say the words goodbye before seeing them off, whether to some faraway place or to their deaths that was often if always, anything beyond peaceful or humane...

Nick looking so unwell, soon to be joining the dead, had tightened something painful in Clementine's chest at memories stirred, thinking of every person who had died that she wished she could've done or said something to before it was too late.

No sooner had Luke let Nick go did Clementine step over and sit down on her knees, cradling the baby carefully in one arm as she'd encircled the other around the back of Nick's neck and hugged him too, uncaring if she'd gotten blood on her or that he stunk of death.

"I'll miss you, Nick."

He'd been a little slow in reacting, not used to her being so affectionate towards to him. But she'd soon felt that hand rest on her back, his weary voice having sounded grateful to her.

"Going soft on me? Not like you." Nick had said in his attempt at humor, though it did nothing to stop Clementine from letting go, not until she was ready to.

Baby Nicky had cooed happily between them, blissfully unaware of what had been going on around her. And lightly Nick had reached a pale hand over, brushing the tiny darker ringlets of the infant's hair.

"Been thinkin', Nicky isn't such a bad name," Nick had confessed to her, although Clementine was sure he'd long taken a liking to that name before having spoken about it then. Still that smile of a dying man had been an honest one, and nothing else. "Be sure to keep it for me, and er, to tell the little rascal where she go it from, and...and, whatever. Just make it good."

It had taken Clementine's all not to cry as she'd nodded.

"I will, promise…"

'_**Not a bad place to die,'**_ Those were the last words that Clementine heard Nick ever say before she and Luke had unwillingly left him on that bridge; his head leaned back, staring up at the sky painted in so many colors of oranges and golds, with a mixture of both content and sadness on his face at its beauty.

Nick had still been staring at it when Clementine had glanced over her shoulder on them reaching the top of that small hill; Nick's head rolling slowly in their direction as if sensing her eyes on him…or maybe, he had just been waiting for them to disappear completely from his view.

Inevitably they had gone, Clementine having to be coaxed by Luke to look away from their ill parted friend, as they had walked down the other side of that hillside, by which point she could no longer see Nick or hear the trickling of that small stream; just the sound of that cold breeze and the sight of more grasslands to where mountains and forests waited miles ahead.

It hadn't been too long before they heard the loud bang from a gun going off across that countryside, sending crows flying up from the branches of a nearby tree, as Clementine's legs fell still, paralyzed by the emotional pain on having another huge part of her be torn out.

* * *

Just when they'd thought things could get any worse, they did.

Luke had been trying to keep both their spirits up, and for the most part it did the trick. But losing a friend wasn't something a person got over quickly. And neither one had forgotten, not any of it…

The three days after leaving Nick in that meadow, the first snowflakes had begun to fall that evening, a small reminder that Christmas was around the corner. Thanks to some lucky scavenging, their supplies were well topped up on for them and baby Nicky, and with a roof over their heads keeping them out from the cold and without a single walker seen in that neighbourhood, it'd been nice.

Yet Nick's absence was constantly felt. Times Clementine had seen him and Luke having a beer or joking about something were replaced by quieter ones, where Luke would go over those maps with her to be sure they were on the right tracks, but also so that Clementine was aware of how to navigate in the event anything happen to him; a possibility she didn't want to consider.

Luke wasn't one to wallow in despair, and no way was he a weak man, but he wasn't made of steel neither. His friend's death had hit him hard, though he tried not to show it, perhaps for her sakes. They needed to stay positive, stay focused if they wanted to make it to Wellington. Yet, even those who were used to keeping on the move, needed a little booster every once and while...

It had been that same evening three days after Nick's death, that Clementine had spotted Luke sitting there in the kitchen quietly rather out of himself, unaware that she could see him from where Clementine was leaned over the banister; maybe thinking she was still napping up in the bedroom with the baby. That spaced out on Luke's face had instantly gone though when he'd heard her coming down the stairs, a smile to have welcomed to her when she'd entered.

"Sleep well?"

"Mhmm," Clementine had nodded, her arms tucked behind her back where they were to stay, waiting for Luke to take notice.

Which, he soon had. "Watcha got there?"

At that cue, Clementine walked on over to her friend, sliding one of her arms out…and had set the deck of cards down on table in front of him.

Luke at stared at those cards, then back at her to where he'd raised curious a brow. And Clementine, with a quick glance down at her feet, she had given a shrug, before raising that packet of candy she'd discovered under her bed.

"Wanna win some jelly beans?"

She still remembered how much Luke looked like he wanted to laugh on that offer at a game of cards with her. But he'd soon motioned his head at the chair across the table, and beaming with a victorious smile Clementine had gone to sit in it while Luke started shuffling those cards.

"Just coz the others ain't here don't mean I'm gonna go easy on you kid," he'd confidently said, causing Clementine to roll her as she'd carefully poured out those jelly beans on the table so they didn't go everywhere.

"Sure..."

Luke had soon eaten his words.

Nine rounds they got in before Nicky's cries upstairs ended their game…and Clementine had won _seven_ of them, gobbling up a few of the jelly beans that Luke did win just to annoy him, but, not in a bad way. Although, that candy was really gross. The jelly beans had gone rock solid from age and didn't taste all that nice. But the game cheered Luke up a lot, even if he was a sore loser.

If one thing kept them most preoccupied when they weren't travelling or looking for food, it was Nicky. No matter how bad things got, seeing that smiling baby girl with that cute button nose of hers, it'd made all the difference for Clementine. Her and Luke had really been getting the hang of all that baby stuff more too, working as a team just as good as they were at killing walkers. Nicky might've been small, but that was the advantage to it. She wasn't too heavy, slept for the most part, and aside from the crying, stinky diapers and the smell of baby puke on their clothes, it wasn't such bleak a prospect as it had been when they had first escaped Carver's camp.

Getting her to Wellington, getting them _all_ to Wellington, it'd seemed doable. After all the people that had died, that baby deserved a shot at a decent future, all three of them deserved that much...but, it would never be the three of them.

If there was one thing Clementine remembered most about Nicky, was that despite the age of two and half weeks, she was incredibly picky. She liked her hugs, being wrapped up snug in her blankets and only ever went to sleep if somebody sung to her. If they didn't, Nicky would cry and cry until someone did before walkers came knocking.

In those few weeks babysitting, Clementine had sung more nursery rhymes than she had in her entire life. Nick had never sung to the baby, saying that he had the singing voice that could skin a cat, and hadn't really wanted to make a fool of himself. Clementine meanwhile, wasn't exactly gifted. yet she'd still made the conscious effort to sing those songs for Nicky that her mom and dad had taught her when she was little, humming the parts she couldn't recall or making some entirely up.

Hands down, it was Luke who was the one with the best singing voice, and one that Clementine secretly envied too. Whenever it was his turn to take care of Nicky during the night, he would sing some old country songs; those Clementine never recognized and was too shy ask the titles of, but she had enjoyed listening all the same. It would take her back to the days her parents used to sing together on those long car trips when away on vacation, or back to that brief time in the Motor Inn when her old group had all sung around that camp fire for a laugh, until Lilly told them to stop, in case the noise drew walkers to the camp.

If things were like they used to be, Luke could've been one of those singers on the radio that Clementine wouldn't have mind tuning in to hear. And Nicky, though barely half a month old, had liked his voice too and shown it when she'd smiled up him beneath purple violet pacifier Clementine had picked out for her with her matching sleepsuit. The infant had really favored him for that talent of this, dozing off a lot quicker whenever it was Luke had sung to her as she had that night when she was rocked to sleep, and laid to rest in that old woven laundry basket used as her crib.

As Luke tucked the baby in, Clementine had wondered if the three of them would be like that in Wellington too. If there really was a chance for a normal life, or the closest they would ever to get to one, would they all stay together as they had? She wished that they could've, together with Nick and the others, everyone…

It'd stopped snowing when Clementine arose that morning at first light, the snowflakes long settled on the edges of the windows in a white powdery frost and everything unusually still.

_Something was_ _wrong_; she'd just known it straight away as she'd sat up on that bed, her body shivering in contact with the cold and the unease within Clementine on looking to that empty baby bottle near the basket on that small table.

Except for that one time before they'd turned in for the night, Nicky hadn't woken them up.

"Luke, LUKE!"

In the other bed the young man had come to, quick in getting up when he'd seen Clementine over by the basket, her hands grasped in front of her, afraid to reach for the grey skinned infant inside.

Nicky wasn't moving.

"Give her here," Clementine had moved aside as Luke had pulled back the blankets and carefully lifted the Nicky up, but Clementine could tell by how rigid the baby's body was in his arms that they were too late; her lips pale beneath the pacifier, without a single rise to fall from her small chest.

Nicky didn't die from a walker bite, nothing as cruel or barbaric as the deaths of their friends and family. No, Rebecca's baby had died from natural causes, from the very thing that used to haunt thousands of new parents in the old days, and probably still did for the few that survived long enough to bring new life into this ruined world.

Sudden infant death syndrome, or what most called it; crib death.

They couldn't have saved her, they couldn't have known. And that was the worst thing about it. They weren't able to prevent that little baby girl from dying…

Luke had buried Nicky in the backyard of that house later that same morning, after having to make sure the infant wouldn't turn; something that had been difficult for him, and that he hadn't allowed Clementine to be a witness to.

While she'd sat there in the living room, listening to the sound of Luke digging that tiny grave out back, Clementine took notice of the small wooden cross hung on the wall above mantelpiece; soon to have dragged a chair over to stand on so she could remove it from its' hook. Using a pen knife in one of the draws, she'd carved Nicky's name onto that cross, just feeling enough emotion to be grateful for the small fact that at least her grave would be marked; something that the others never got.

'_**How am I supposed to raise a child? I mean, how can anyone now…? Everything is so fucked up.'**_

'_**I think it's possible.'**_

'_**How do you know?'**_

'_**Well, I'm still here.'**_

They failed Rebecca, that's all Clementine could keep thinking about, so tangled up in her own thoughts that the knife accidently slipped in her grasp on carving out the letter _'C'_ slicing the side of her thumb. It'd stung, but Clementine hadn't done anything about it; didn't stand up to go and wash it clean and get a band-aid. She had just stared emptily at that little cut, watching the red liquid seep out from between the broken skin, and had let it bleed...

No card games were played that night, and come the next morning they planned to move on from that small house. Luke had gone down to the river on his own to refill their bottles of water, while Clementine stayed behind to gather up the last of her things into her backpack, leaving behind those baby clothes and other belongings of Nicky's they had no need of anymore. Once she was ready, she'd just perched herself on the edge of the bed, staring at that empty basket still carrying the indents where Nicky had laid, as Clementine's thumb ran along the edges of that pacifier, unable to tear her mind away from the memories of that sweet little girl that should've still been breathing with her.

At hearing the sound of the door go downstairs, and a little sooner than expected, down Clementine carefully set that pacifier in the basket, staring at it a moment longer with a silent pray somehow Nicky would get a second chance in another life somewhere better, before she left that room to go meet Luke. Problem being however, when Clementine had gotten to the stairs, she only made it halfway down when she was greeted by the barrel of a gun.

"Well, fancy meeting you again young lady."

She never thought she'd see that man again.

They had been reckless, reckless and stupid in believing no repercussions from the incident at the camp some weeks before would follow them this far. But they had lived in a false sense of security; security that was ripped right out from under their feet in an instance on finding Carver standing at the bottom of those stairs, that old revolver of his aimed directly up at her.

He'd looked total mess, like a tramp; thin with barely any weight on him, clothes dirty and his stubble grown out into a thick beard that was as poorly maintained as his hair...and with a mad eyed look harbored on him that reminded Clementine so much of the stranger from Savannah, Carver may as well have been the same guy.

No others were with Carver that day, either dead or long having abandoned their leader that they had finally seen for who he was, and who had fallen into a far worse frame of mind since then; his calm exterior crumbled to nothing. All Clementine saw that day was just a broken man, a man still driven by the same goal that he would do anything to achieve, and at any cost.

And that, terrified Clementine more than that gun.

"Got nothing to say to me, uh? I can't really blame you. I'm not much of a sight to see. I have you and your traitorous friends to thank for that," Carver had said to her slyly, the scratching of his beard having sounded like sandpaper to her ears, with the stench of filth coming off him so strongly that Clementine had been able to smell him from all the way from up those stairs. "The truth is I've been tracking you for some time; trail nearly went cold too. But then I found your friend, what's his name…ah, never liked the boy much anyway. Always whining about something."

She'd remembered Nick in that moment, of him sitting on the bridge where she and Luke were forced to leave him; the gunshot carried across the countryside from his life having ended by his own hand...

Or, or had it been?

Clementine held onto that banister with such a death grip, the ends of several of her fingernails cracked against the wood. The air caught in her throat, unable to speak, frightened that at any second Carver would shoot her right where she stood and her life would be over.

But he hadn't. Carver was too proud a man, lost in the moment of proving to her what fools she and Luke were. He'd been hunting them from the very start, from the very instance he'd seen Luke and Nick drive off with the newborn in that truck, the same truck Carver was to later found abandoned. He'd known of their plan to go to Wellington, and that it was only a matter of time before he caught up to them, whether on the road or at their destination. Carver announced all of this to Clementine as he'd held her at gunpoint, the man sounding nothing but deluded as if searching for them and his baby girl had finally driven away what little sanity he had left.

And an unpredictable Carver was much more lethal than a lesser sane one.

"As much as I really appreciate you two going out of your way to take care of my little girl, I think it about time I take over from here, being father and all," very slowly Carver had climbed those stairs, never taking the gun off her as he'd smiled with that false kindness that did nothing to hide who he truly was. "So if you'd do me the honors of leading me to her room sweetheart; that would be very much obliged."

Clementine nearly had a heart attack, edging a back a step with legs shaking at the realization of his words to have revealed no deceit behind them, but longing at the mention of his child…

Carver, he had absolutely no idea his baby was dead.

He must've been aware Nicky was with them until recently for him to have pulled a stunt like that, especially if he'd ever found any of the places they'd stayed in previous nights; coming across those discarded food cans, used diapers or baby wipes that would've separated them from other survivors out there. For all Clementine and Luke could've known, Carver might've been stalking them for days, watching that house just waiting for the right time to drop in, when Luke had conveniently stepped out.

But what Carver hadn't seen was the freshly dug grave out back in the garden, and it was that hidden truth which was the only thing keeping him from pulling that trigger. Yet Carver wouldn't have underestimated her again, not for a second time as he done back in his camp when he believed he could change her, and failed. The only trick Clementine had up her sleeve, was _bluffing_. And thanks to her friends and playing those countless games of poker, she had gotten pretty good at it.

Worried at what might have happened if she said nothing, somehow, Clementine pushed herself into finding her voice again. And bluff, she did.

"Why should I? You'll just kill me anyway."

There was only another smile given to her boldness as Carver stepped closer. "That's an interesting point you make there. But you see I have no intention of killing you my dear, or spilling more blood than I have to."

Kenny's death flashed in her mind then, at the horrible instance Carver had slit open his throat as punishment for challenging him into a violent punch up, after losing it over Sarita's murder to have been caused by that same monster. Old wounds reopened at the agony Clementine and the others went through as they'd been forced to watch her old friend bleed out on the ground in the middle of town while they were held back at gunpoint; no shouting or words strong enough to stop any of it before that blade was drawn, and the chambers of that revolver were emptied into Kenny's skull before he'd breathed his last...

Clementine had let go of the banister, her palms sweaty as her eyes briefly flicked beyond Carver to the windows near the front door, searching for signs Luke was coming back. There was none. "W, Why not?"

"All these questions. I could always tell you were a smart one Clementine, and those are the sorts of people I just so happen to like, so long as they do as they're told," Carver said just three steps away, that gun close enough that if it had gone off, the damage would've been fatal for her. "You've done good for my girl, it only makes sense to keep you around rather than Luke, now doesn't it? And I'm sure with some convincing you'll be willing to tag along, isn't that right?"

One person on their own couldn't take care of a baby, not in this world. That was the only reason Carver even considered the idea of keeping her around, so there would be someone else there to help; an eleven year old he believed he could easily control more than a grown man like Luke. And if Carver took Luke out of the picture, then Clementine would've had no choice but to go with him if she wanted her and Nicky to survive, or so he must've thought.

She'd seen how he worked, warping people's minds with well-chosen words and both visible and veiled threats. The younger they were, the more likely they were to be convinced into his way of thinking, out of willingness or fear. But Clementine wasn't weak like Sarah, and what little belief Carver had that there was still a chance of warping her mind because of her age, well…he was wrong.

All said and done though, Clementine wasn't tough like Lee or Luke. If Carver wanted to, he could've beaten her half to death if it got her to cooperate with him. And he was the one pointing the gun at her, not the other way around…

Clementine could only bite down on her tongue to stop herself from saying something stupid, silence Carver took for compliance.

"Good, now please be a dear and kindly show me the way," he'd motioned with the revolver forward, to usher her up the stairs with that skin crawling grin. "No funny business now, Clementine. I got my eye on you."

Her mind had been racing a mile a minute, her pulse going just as fast as she'd nervously turned around and walked slowly back up those stairs with Carver following right behind her, wishing with every step she took closer to that bedroom Luke would come back from the river in time to save her.

She was seen as a valuable asset, but that wouldn't last once Nicky's death was revealed. Even if Luke had returned in time, Carver would've just used her as a hostage long enough to put a bullet in his head like he had done with her before. They would've both died, without a plan.

Clementine couldn't rely on Luke, only herself.

On finally bringing Carver to that room where the basket was up on the table by the window, she'd caught sight of the ajar door to that cramped bathroom adjoined to the twin bedroom she and Luke had shared over those few days with Nicky. It was her only chance…

Making sure to have not to let her eyes give anything away as she had turned on her heels to face Carver, Clementine glanced over at that basket from where she stood at the foot of those unmade beds, and pointed. "She's in there, i-in the basket."

Smiling like some proud father, Carver had taken the bait straight away and walked right by her, all too eager to officially meet his child and hold her in his arms after all that time; the same child he must've believed Clementine wouldn't have dared to go running off without. If Nicky were still alive, maybe, that would've been true…

_But she wasn't!_

In the time it took Carver to look into that the woven laundry basket and discover nothing but those blankets and the pacifier inside, Clementine had already bolted for the bathroom, slamming the door shut and the twisting that key residing in its' lock before he had even a chance to stop her. The impact of that man's body had collided with that door a second later from the opposite side, that caused Clementine stumble back in alarm, nearly falling into the bathtub at the angry voice to have yelled threats above the heavy pounding at that door.

"Clementine! Open the door, Clementine! _**OPEN THE DOOR!**_"

The revolver soon fired off when breaking down the door failed; blasting chips of wood everywhere in trying to shoot open the door's lock, each bullet fired through nearly missing Clementine by inches.

Running on adrenaline she'd wasted no time in stepping up onto that toilet lid to push open the small narrow window above it, her body just being small enough to squeeze through it and escape as the bathroom door was kicked open behind her with a loud bang.

Carver was already at the window, revolver out as Clementine slid down the snow covered tiles of that garage, rolling off the side of the roof to land gracelessly on some bushes below that broke her fall. And she'd taken off, running down that street; too far away by then for Carver to have tried to take even a decent shot.

It hadn't stopped him though, no way.

That front door was to be thrown open by the time Clementine was at the intersection, her heart thudding in her chest at seeing Carver running from the house, his face ablaze with lunacy and fury as he'd given chase, growling between gritted teeth like some feral dog after prey.

To be caught wasn't an option, to run was. And run she did with everything in her, rushing through the small gate to the woodland path beside the last of the houses at the end of that neighbourhood; nearly running right into the arms of a walker Clementine had to swerve to the side of to avoid getting chomped. That wandering corpse was to only hold Carver up for a few seconds as the enraged man shoved it out of the way, knocking it over. And after her Carver sprinted, faster than she even knew he was capable of going.

The river, Clementine had been heading for the river that Luke had gone to, the one someway along of that winding trail and down a steep slope through the trees. Clementine hoped that she could get to Luke before Carver got to her first, but he had been gaining on her quickly; the path loose with rocks and covered in ice beneath that thin layer of snow in places, slowing her down even more. No matter what Clementine had done, she just couldn't run get away fast enough.

But even with Carver closing in on her, he hadn't risked taking anymore shots with his gun, or shouted out any of that cooped up anger to fuel the strength in his arms and legs. Maybe he thought he'd been deceived, and that she and Luke were hiding the baby elsewhere. To be heard and draw unwanted attention would've been to his disadvantage until she was caught, and he needed her alive.

Being a little helper for the baby, it was all that had prevented Carver from blowing her brains out and killing her as she'd fled. And was at coming to that conclusion Clementine had gone to opened her mouth and shout out into the woods for her friend's help to foil that plan…only for nothing to come out, as if she'd been punched in the gut. And it was all because, she remembered something.

The gun, Luke had left _her_ the gun! The pistol that had only half a clip remaining in it. Clementine had put it on the kitchen counter when she'd gone upstairs in a daze over Nicky, not thinking straight. A great thing to do, as if she hadn't learnt her lesson the last time when it got Omid killed. And Luke, he had only the machete on him and that was it. Bringing a knife to a gun fight? If Carver were to have found out from the both of them what'd happen to the baby, he would have shot them dead. That machete, it wouldn't have done anything up against a loaded gun.

Running to Luke, it had been a mistake. He would only get hurt too, and with every bend in that path through those trees, Clementine was afraid she would to see him strolling back up that hill with those water bottles, and it would be all over... and then, there'd been the festering panic of the unknown that what if Luke already was dead? What if Carver had killed him before he'd gone into the house, and he just hadn't said…?

She couldn't take Carver on her own; not without a weapon. And she'd been running out of both time and energy, with Carver close to catching up to her that Clementine almost thought she could feel him breathing down her neck. And with her lungs heaving with exhaustion, muscles burning as the cold flushed her cheeks red; Clementine had soon spotted that cut away through the dense foliage in those trees, hearing the sound of the river flowing somewhere below nearby.

In that moment she'd made her choice.

Clementine had chosen to run straight past it.

Keeping her head fixed forward as not to draw attention to the hidden trail, and with her body nearly out of stamina, Clementine had sucked in a deep breath of air and screamed out the name of her last and only surviving friend as loudly as she could, and had prayed that he'd still been alive to hear it.

"_**LUKE!"**_

Carver had run by the hidden trail too, relief temporally having flooded her when he did, a relief that was soon gone some few strides after when Clementine's foot slipped on a frozen puddle on the path that she saw one second too late.

She'd fallen down painfully on her side, bashing her elbow along with her hip as part of her face was scratched up by the rocky ground. Frantic Clementine went to get up again, when she was struck in the back of the head with Carver's revolver, just as she'd been about to stand.

Without mercy he'd kicked her in the stomach, _hard_, the impact knocking both Clementine over onto her back, and the air from her lungs. And before she was able to catch her breath, that hand closed tightly around her throat as Carver pinned her to the ground.

"Where is she? Where is my child!? Answer me!"

Clementine couldn't have given one, even if she'd been able to speak, there wouldn't have been an answer worth saying to have gotten Carver to stop. He was too far gone in the head; a truth or lie, he might've of killed her anyway, left her to die on that path in the woods all for not letting up where the baby was.

Her legs kicked uselessly against him, scratching at his wrist desperate for the air being choked out of her. When she'd failed to say anything, and did nothing other than struggle, Carver slammed her head against the ground from where she laid, spots appearing in her vision as the ache in the back of her bruised head intensified tenfold.

Those dark eyes filled with nothing but murderous intentions, Carver had shoved that gun in her face, words hissed out between his teeth with his breath stinking putrid.

"I'll ask you nicely again, where is she? Tell me now, because I've just about had it with you and your games. "

Clementine's lungs had been on fire, hardly able to focus on what he was saying as all she'd been thinking of was about getting away before she was strangled to death. She'd clawed a hand at the earth, trying to find a heavy enough rock to smash into the side of Carver's head, yet Clementine could clutch at nothing but icy pebbles and dirt; her arms too short to reach high enough to even poke her thumbs in Carver's eyes as Christa had once done to a creep who once snuck into their tent...

In those dying efforts, Clementine grabbed a handful of those tiny stones and chucked them at Carver's face. It'd done the trick, blinding the man long enough for Clementine to lift one of her legs out to kick him off. Gasping and coughing she'd crawled away, never even making it onto her feet when that arm wrapped around her and Carver pulled her to him into a chokehold, threatening to snap her neck like a twig as another scream was silenced by that hand to have clamped over her mouth.

"You little wretch! So that's how it is, huh? If you won't talk, then why don't we go and ask the farm boy where she is? I'm sure Luke will be more far negotiable when you're-

A sickening wet _**crack**_, the world suddenly turned red, as liquid splattered across Clementine from behind. The arm around her neck slipped away, that hand over her mouth falling limp along with it, allowing her to breathe again. And like a puppet with its strings cut, Carver collapsed down dead onto the ground next to her, blood pouring out from the gaping hole in the back of his head like a disgusting water fountain; those eyes staring blank and lifeless up at her with his face contorted in total shock...

Clementine nearly screamed when someone grabbed her arm, almost having gone to fight away from it until she'd seen Luke; looking and sounding worried as hell as he'd pulled her up

"Clem it's alright, it's me!"

She'd been too shaken up to say much, nodding her head or giving short answers to most of what Luke was to ask her that day; if she was okay, what'd happened...

They'd gone straight back to the house, gotten their things, and left. If Carver was true about being alone, they hadn't waited around to find out. And from then on they were more vigilant than ever, never separating like that again, and always, _always_ watching each other's backs. All the while Clementine kept thinking how it had come to this, and how much she wished she'd grabbed that knife in the cabin all those months ago when Carver first showed up; _wished_, that she had told Lee all those years ago that she had seen Ben behaving strangely in those days before the bandits…

How different things might've been for them. Or maybe, nothing would have changed at all, and Clementine would've still been journeying alone with Luke, family and friends lost on both sides, with the past never going away and future just a hole in the ground waiting for them to fall in. The closer they got to Wellington, the more that had old saying _'too good to be true'_ rung in her ears.

Walkers, cannibals, bandits, and twisted psychos, when would it ever stop…?

* * *

Two and half years ago, when Lee died, Clementine hadn't left the jewellery store, not right away. To see her parents dead as walkers, and then for him to go too; the one person she ever came close to calling a second father, it had been too much for her nine year old self to take.

In a naïve belief and in refusal to accept the truth, she thought that maybe if she stayed there long enough holding Lee's cold lifeless hand in hers, time would go back to the way things were before when everything was fine. Or just maybe, Lee would wake up again, and they could leave Savannah together. But Lee would never come back; Clementine had made sure of that when fulfilling his dying request not to turn into one of those things...

Lee had always been there through thick and thin, right from day one. She'd felt lost without him, that it had taken Clementine god knows how long to summon the strength to stand again, trying to remember where he'd said to find Omid and Christa as she'd rubbed the coagulated blood of that dead security guard onto her clothes, and climbed those stairs to the unknown; crossing over rooftops, sneaking along alleyways and walking tearfully among the crowds of undead, until rolling fields she'd wandered, teeming on exhaustion into that dawn.

When she had learned from Omid and Christa how Lee got bitten, Clementine blamed herself for it nearly every single day, just as much as she blamed herself for every other life that could've been saved if she had done things differently.

'_**It wasn't supposed to be this way, why….I told you, I said to keep it on you at all times! I said Clementine!' **_

Christa's words still cut her deep, grief-stricken from Omid and unable to trust Clementine with a firearm ever again. The woman fell into more despair when her child was born stillborn weeks later; the smiles and laughter all gone by then, with her friend becoming a ghost with each passing day that wanted to up and vanish. The only thing keeping Christa going was the promise she made to Lee to look out for Clementine. Maybe that's why she was so set on them going to Wellington, not just to find them safety, but to be free of that responsibility so she could just...

The times she saw Christa holding that switchblade in her hand at night, when she'd believed Clementine was sleeping; the days the woman went without saying a word or eating a bite, even when they had food on them. Christa wanted to _die_, she never shared that with her, but she didn't have to back then.

Christa had reminded Clementine frequently to be grateful for every new day they lived to see, and to be grateful to still have air in their lungs. Yet those nights where sleep did not come easy, if worrying about walkers or what Christa might do to herself, Clementine silently questioned if it was all worth it, if it would be better just to hold her breath and slip away, rather than keep fighting if it would just lead to nothing.

To give in and die? If that was what Clementine had really wanted, she would have done it by now. And she felt it from deep inside that even when times were tough and more frightening than any make-believe monsters under the bed, Clementine still wanted to _live_. As much as it pained her, she wouldn't let past mistakes change her for the worst. Lee and her parents, they would want her to keep surviving, to keep fighting. And for them, Clementine would continue doing that for as long as she possibly could.

Nobody lived forever; everybody died sooner or later. Clementine was well aware of that impossibility to defeat death permanently, it was just that…she was scared that when her time eventually came, it would be one where she was in pain, whether from disease or being eaten alive by walkers, or somebody just trying to murder her in cold blood. She was afraid of that day coming, after all the friends and family gone from her life, Clementine really did feel like she was just waiting in line to be next.

If she was going to die, then…

Faintness overwhelmed her in that first attempt to stand up for the morning, soon sitting her butt back down on the bed as she waited for the dizziness to go before trying again, slower. Walking with small steps in case that faintness returned, Clementine reached for the doorknob with the wrong hand, or rather _stump;_ mentally cursing that bad habit before she opened the door of that guest room with her right hand, and stepped out onto the landing.

From all around Clementine, the house was quiet…well, all except for those light sounding snores coming from the room across from hers; the door open a crack where she could see Luke sprawled lazily out on that double bed, with the sheets half off him and a bit of drool noticeable in the corner side of his mouth too...

Yep, definitely asleep.

Doing her best to remain quiet, Clementine avoided those few creaky floorboards on her way to the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind her. Up on tiptoes, her hand retrieved the thermometer from the cabinet, catching her half-awake reflection in the mirror when Clementine closed it. Sticking the thermometer under her tongue, carefully she sat herself down on the edge of that ugly green bathtub, and there, she began to count in her head. 40 seconds, and then extra 20 more just to be sure as Clementine rubbed her tired eyes and peered up at that small grubby skylight, where clouds floated across the blue beyond the thick chunks of snow melting down that glass.

Luke had used that same thermometer over the first couple days that they had spent here at the farmhouse; every morning and evening and right before bed. And like clockwork he'd asked how she was feeling too, if she needed anything, if she was hungry…it got really annoying. Yet on the third day when Luke stopped taking her temperature, Clementine still found herself waking up and do it herself as she did this morning like every other day before she went downstairs.

A routine done out of paranoia, or just being extra careful? Clementine never could figure it out, but when she was to check that thermometer again as she'd done before, she relaxed just a little more each time.

_No fever._

Her feet carried a little lighter, back into the cabinet the thermometer went, and hopefully for the last time she thought to herself as she left that bathroom to get dressed into some clean clothes, and wake a snoring Luke up.

If Clementine was going to die, then it wasn't to be anytime soon, not just yet…

* * *

_[One to go...]_


End file.
